Skip to main content
School of Geography

Dr Vicky Holmes

Vicky

Visiting Research Fellow

Email: v.holmes@qmul.ac.uk

Profile

twitter @vicky_holmes

Vicky is a historian of the 19th-century working-class home in Britain, with a focus on the rural and urban location of East Anglia. Having completed her PhD in 2012 at the University of Essex on the topic of Victorian domestic dangers, she turned her focus to exploring in depth the domestic lives of those living and sleeping within the working-class home. Her current publications include work on domestic methodology, lodgers, and domestic safety legislation.

Current research interests include:

  • The material and domestic arrangements of the working-class bedroom
  • The domestic lives of lodgers in East Anglia and London
  • The domestic lives and community support of elderly men in the urban environment

For more details on Vicky’s current research, follow her blog: drvickyholmes.com

Vicky is currently serving on the British Association for Victorian Studies (BAVS) Executive Committee as treasurer, as well as a Social History Society convenor of the ‘Lifecycles, Family and Community’ conference strand.

Vicky has been employed on a number of historical projects over the past decade relating to a number of topics, including historical censuses, shareholders past and present, and charity fundraising.

Research

Publications

Journal Articles

  • Holmes, V. (2015) ‘Penny Death Traps: The Press, the Poor, & the “Perilous” Penny Paraffin Lamp’, Victorian Review 40: 125-142.
  • Holmes, V. (2014) ‘“Death of an Infant”: Coroners’ Inquests and the Study of Victorian Domestic Practice’, Home Cultures 11: 305-331.
  • Holmes, V. (2014) ‘Accommodating the Lodger: The Domestic Arrangements of Lodgers in Working-Class Dwellings in a Victorian Provincial Town’, Journal of Victorian Culture 19: 314-331.
  • Holmes, V. (2012) ‘Absent Fireguards and Burnt Children: Coroners and the Development of Clause 15 of the Children Act 1908’, Law, Crime, and History 2: 21-58.
Back to top